Amy's BOM and a Friendship Block

I didn't do alot today. I really couldn't get motivated. I did three blocks, watched John Wayne on TV and cleaned house. Kind of a blah day cause it's still so hot here. I wanted to go outside but it was still so hot, I couldn't stand it. I am definitely ready for cooler weather....

I did two of the August blocks for Amy's BOM. I am really pushing the time limit on this one. Normally, I do these blocks the first part of the month but I really procrastinated.

Here's Block 1: Maltese Star



Block 2: Friendship Star
This one took me awhile to do. It wasn't hard but sure had a lot of pieces...




This is a friendship block for Marcella in my Sew What's Group. This was a fun and easy block from Quilter's Cache website....

Some of my friends won at the State Fair with their tatting!

I just found out that three of my friends won ribbons on their tatting for the state fair! I had no doubts about any of them, they are all wonderful tatters. Congrats to Lucille for 1st Prize with this beautiful baby bonnet:









Congrats go out to Denise for 2nd Prize with her Texas Star Doily:



Congrats to Mickey for 3rd Prize but I have no idea what she entered...

Way to go ladies! We're all very pleased and proud for you.
I haven't heard about anybody else winning but when I do I'll let you know.
I did not enter my flag, I am still working on it. I have been very bad and not worked on it like I should. I have been quilting and working on other things instead. I didn't even enter any of my quilts in the fair but that's ok too because I have several friends that won in that division too. I can't wait to go to the fair to see everyone's entries! Ooh, Sept. 24th is right around the corner.

Ok, back to sewing and cleaning! Happy Saturday!

1st Day of School for my Grandkids

These are my sweet grandkids. It is the first day of school, Alayna is in kindergarten, Brandon in First Grade and Trent has a few more years to go.



Brandon and Alayna




Carrie (my DIL) and Alayna

Sunday Sewing and Grandkids

My guys were gone picking up an old pickup from a friend of ours. My older son has wanted this truck since he was 16 and he is now 28...He finally talked our friend into letting him buy it. This will be a project for my two sons and my husband to work on together. They were gone all day and I got some quality me time...

I worked on several things. I made up for lost time with no sewing machine Friday night. I put together all 8 strips of this Stacked Brick quilt. It is now ready for sashing and borders. This is the 3rd Stacked Brick quilt. One is finished, I just showed that one a few posts back. Number 2 and 3 are in the strip phase now. I think I'll use scraps for the sashing strips on these. I'll audition these and see which ones I like. These are all pressed and ready to be put together.






I put together two more rows for my Floating 4 Patch Quilt. It now has 10 rows and is a small square quilt. I'm going to put together more rows on this one. This one is just too small. It's so cute, I want it to be a full size quilt so I need more strips. This month is the last month for the exchange so I guess I'll put together as many as I can.





I also washed and pressed my little Nana's Flower Patch wallhanging. The pink marks came out just fine. I put the French Knots on it and some little red heart buttons. I will be putting some quilting around the hexagon and then I can frame it. The pattern called for an old looking frame but I don't want that. I know what I want, it's just finding it...If I can't find what I want, I'll get my husband to make me one. He is very talented with glass and picture framing.




Tonight, is a back to school party over at my son's house for my granddaughter and grandson. Alayna started kindergarten today and Brandon went to 1st grade. We'll be having dinner followed by cake and ice cream. Wow, where does the time go? Seems like just yesterday, they were little and crawling. Enjoy your grandkids while you can, cause they grow up too fast!

GO Giveaway!!!

Paulette over at Sweet P Quilting is having a Go Cutter giveaway. She's also doing some great tutorials on it. Go check her out. Click on her name above and it will take you to her blog.

Saturday Sewing and checking out another guild

I got up this morning and sewed on an old UFO. It is a stacked brick quilt. This will be my third one. I have made one quilt and have the other two in the works. The second quilt has all the brick strips made and ready. This third one, I have all the bricks done, I am just sewing them into the strips now. I wanted something that was just no thinking involved sewing and this one fit the bill this morning. I couldn't sew for a long time cause I was leaving the house soon to visit another quilt guild. I went over to the Rowlett Guild this morning and sat in on one of their meetings. Lovely ladies. I had a great time visiting their group and seeing what other guilds are working on. I'll have to go back for another visit soon. I did run into some old friends I haven't seen in a long time. It's a small world, this quilting world of ours, huh? I did not take pictures but one of the ladies said she would send me some. I'll share those later. Here's some pictures of my Stacked Brick quilt. One of the girls in the Friday night sewing group is also working on this and I wanted to show these to her...I don't think I ever took pictures of this one anyway, so you have to look at it too....

My first Stacked Brick.


A close-up of the ugly fabrics in the quilt:


A close up of the ugly fabric, sashings and border fabrics:



Now, I am back to sewing again. Have a great Saturday.

Friday night sewing with Heidi and Bobbi and a missing bobbin case.

I didn't do all the sewing I wanted to but I did do a little bit. I grabbed my sewing machine, some of my projects and headed over to be with some of my friends. I was going to sew up a storm and low and behold, my sewing machine's bobbin case was missing. OMG, I couldn't believe it, I couldn't sew at all...I had been sewing with this machine on my kitchen table and I needed to wind a bobbin. I remember putting the bobbin case under my machine (you know the area between the machine and the bottom when you take the bed off, it becomes a skinny bed to sew sleeves or whatever) to wind the bobbin and I guess I didn't replace it. I was just hoping it was somewhere where it could be found. Luckily, I brought a hand-sewing project. I worked on this little project....



I got all of my stitching done and put the buttons on. Now, I will be putting some quilting around the outside of the block in black thread. I still need to add some french knots here and there but I have to wash this piece first. I used a pink pencil to draw on where the green stem stitches needed to go and I can see it. I tried brushing it off, I tried erasing and neither worked. I don't want to press this until I wash. Believe me, I have made that mistake before and the marks are still in the quilt to prove it! So, I'll wash this then press it and put a light interfacing on it and finish it with quilting and french knots. Then I can frame it.

I had a good time with my friends anyway and that's what's important. I enjoyed stitching on this little piece too and it's almost finished. I'll take another picture and show you when it's completed.

Now, back to the missing bobbin case...I worried during the meeting that I would probably have to buy another one. I was afraid I had lost it when I carried my machine out to the car. I knew I would have to retrace my steps and search for it and hope it hadn't been stepped on or drove over. Anyway, I took my stuff out to my car to load it up and there it was on the bottom of my floor board! Wow, was I ever smiling then. I went back in and told the girls I found it and we had a good laugh over it...Woo, what a relief. I'm a happy girl now.

Sew What's Group and goodies in the mail

Last night was my small group meeting. It was our annual picnic and installation of new officers for the coming year. Good food and fellowship was on the agenda for the evening and we were not disappointed. We had sandwiches and drinks from Jason's Deli. It was just right for our picnic. No one had to cook or slave over a hot stove for this meeting! We had a good turnout and everyone had a great time. We had a little show and tell too for the meeting. Here's what some of our members are working on..

Judy's basket quilt. She's going to have this one hand quilted by another one of our members. Irene will be hand quilting this one for her...




Irene's bluebonnet pillow.



Cathey's pieced baby quilt. Cathey is not friendly with her machine. She is an appliquer and scared of the machine. I think she's getting a little more friendly.


Sharon's wool pillows:





Helen's quilter pillow:






Dee's Quilt top:


Martha's friendship quilt. She made this along with several other ladies to give to the bus driver that always drives them to the Houston Quilt Show. His favorite color is purple. They will be giving him this when he drives them to Houston.... Look at the sweet label, isn't that cute?







Martha's Mola:


Cindy's cute bag:





The Church Quilt. Our group meets at a church each month. One of our member's is a member of the church. We don't have to rent the room or anything. We do give them a quilt each year to raffle off as our way of saying thank you for letting us meet there. This is the quilt for this year...





Our leader gave each of us a cookbook or member's recipes and she gave me this sweet coin purse. I was the treasurer for our group this year and this was her way of saying Thanks. Thank you, Glenda. I love them both.





Weren't those great? We had a wonderful meeting and our members are so talented. I love this group.

When I got home, I had more goodies in the mail too. I received my wonderful bag from Terry with so many cool things inside. She had the goodies inside the bag and it was all wrapped up with a sweet fat quarter. She gave me some floss, two Aunt Martha's transfer patterns, a vintage apron pattern and some wonderful patterns too. What a sweet and generous gift. Thank you, Terry. I love them all.





I also received a beautiful hand made card from Jane along with my first signature block. I'm going to have to get busy and start making some signature blocks to send out...this is going to be so much fun. Thank you so much, Jane, I love them.





Wow, I had a great day and got lots of goodies too. It couldn't have been a better day unless I had won the lottery.

Friday Night Sewing with Heidi and Bobbi and friends

This Friday is Friday Night Sewing night with Heidi and Bobbi. Come and join us. Click on the brown button on the right hand side bar and it will take you to Heidi's blog to sign up. I'll be sewing with friends on Friday night here in my area and I'll take pics of all of the stuff we will be working on. We have food too so we are not missing anything! I so enjoy sewing with my buddies, I get alot done and I usually learn something along the way too. Happy Quilting!

Christina over at A Few Scraps is hosting a quilt along and a giveaway!

I was reading Linda's blog (Linda's Lines and Loves) and she posted about A Few Scraps having a quilt along. Of course, I had to go check it out. Christina over at A Few Scraps is having a giveaway. Not only is it a giveaway but she is also hosting a Quilt Along. I have plenty of tops to quilt. I don't want to quilt all of these on my little quilting frame. Some of the tops are small, some are tablerunners and some I just don't want to put on a big frame. I have machine quilted for awhile but I am always open to help and suggestions. I want to make my quilting better so I have decided to play along with her Quilt Along. If you want to join us, you can click on her button and it will take you there or click on her name and it will also take you there. Have fun and happy quilting!

I won Terry's Giveaway!

Terry over at Terry's Treasures made my day yesterday. I got an email from her saying I won her giveaway. Terry made a beautiful bag to give away and she is sending it to me!!!How cool is that? Thanks, Terry. All the bags I'm working on will be Christmas gifts for others so I will actually get to keep a bag for myself. Oh boy, I can't wait. Thanks so much, I'm so excited!!! It was just meant for me to win this as I'm a blue and yellow girl!

A Great Fat Quarter Giveaway!

Julie over at Jaybird Quilts has teamed up the the Fat Quarter Shop for a wonderful Fat Quarter Bundle Giveaway. Look at this...37 Fat Quarters of the Moda line called Pure! I love it...hurry on over and sign up and you might be the lucky winner!

Click here and it will take you there. Good luck.

My Plaid Teddy Bear is finished and my Heart Tablerunner is finished!

My husband got up early Sunday morning and went to Walmart without me.. I went in to make coffee and he was gone in my car. I called him on the phone and told hime I needed some stuffing for my bear. He didn't have a clue what I was talking about. Of course, I had to explain to him exactly what I needed. He went to the aisle and read off every package to me to make sure he was getting the right stuff. He brought me home the biggest bag of stuffing I have ever seen. I'll have stuffing for several bears now! Oh well, at least I didn't have to drive to town! I stuffed my bear and finished him up. He turned out so cute.

It got me to thinking too(that's a dangerous thing). My quilt group is always looking for community service projects around Christmas, so I think I will talk to them about making stuffed animals. I know I have several of these panels to make animals like bears and dolls. I thought maybe if I had these, then surely other people in my guild had these too. Why not make them up and give them to nursing homes at Christmas or to hospitals for children at Christmas. Instead of keeping them in our stash, let's put them to use. Anyway, it's just an idea and even if my guild doesn't go for it, I think I'll be doing this myself.

I also quilted one of my tablerunners Sunday afternoon. I finished it up last night and bound it while I was watching TV. It was a tablerunner for myself for Valentine's Day. I plan on having a runner for each month. This one is for February and is red hearts. It was small and didn't take any time to finish up.

Here's Mr Plaid Bear and my Heart Tablerunner

Another Go Giveaway!

Karen over at Sew Many Quilts has a wonderful blogsite. I follow her and she does the Tool Time Tuesdays and has some brilliant ideas all the time. She is having a giveaway of a Go Cutter. She will also be giving tutorials of several items she will be making from the Go Cutter. Go over and say hello and enter her drawing for the Go Cutter. You will be hooked on her blog once you start reading it.

Friday night sewing, Saturday sewing with friends

Sorry, no pics for this post.

So far, this weekend has been alot of fun sewing with friends. Friday, after work, I went straight over to my friend, Judy's house and worked on binding some pillows for her. During the meantime, she quilted two of my quilts. Dear Blanche and Table Manners...she finished late Friday night and I took them home with me. They are beautiful. I will take pictures and share them with you when they are bound. Hopefully, I'll bind them this week as I'm ready for these two to be finished...She did a great job and I am so pleased with them.

This morning, I went over to sew with my ASG friends at Lana's quilt barn. We had a blast. Everyone worked on whatever they wanted to. I took some things to work on but changed my mind when I got there. Sandy was cleaning out this week and brought some things to give away. I took some of the things from her and started working on them. As some of you know, I have a soft spot for teddy bears. She had a teddy bear cut out and I just had to have it. I sewed it all together but didn't have any stuffing. Next, I started working on my Placemat bags. I got one bag half way finished. I'll work on this one later this week too. Several of us made scissor fobs. I'll show you that later too. It was a fun day and we had good food and fellowship, as usual.

I came home and took a nap. It was so hot today and I was exhausted from all the fun! I got up later and found out I didn't have enough stuffing for my little bear. I had enough to stuff the legs and arms. I'll have to go to Walmart or Michael's tomorrow for stuffing so I can finish. I'll show you the cute little bear then. For now, have a wonderful Sunday.

Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt

I went to tatting and hung out with the girls for a while. I'm still working on my never-ending flag. I love it but it sure is taking a long time. I have only been working on it when I go to my tatting group so it is going slow because of that. I have been wanting to sew and finish projects instead of tatting. I didn't make the deadline for the state fair so I have given myself the ok just to relax and enjoy tatting it instead of being frantic about it. It was alot of fun at the group tonight and one of our ladies is sure to win the blue ribbon this year. She tatted a baby bonnet off of Tatman's blog and it is beautiful. I wish I had taken a picture of it but I didn't even think about it. We were just all visiting and laughing and time got away....I'll take one next week so you can see it . I left a little early so I could come home and sew.

This is what I worked on when I got home. I put the final borders on the Jelly Roll Sampler. I was able to get just enough fabric to do the border and hopefully I'll have enough for binding. Anyway, this one is now a flimsy and is ready for quilting.



This was alot of fun and easy to do. I had this Jelly Roll just laying around with nothing special planned for it until I ran across Moose on the Porch blog. I have a smidgen of fabric left from the Jelly Roll and I'll be able to make a mini quilt or something out of the leftovers, but that's another story... I want to finish some other things on my list first. Take care and happy sewing.

Mother Goose is Finished and Crazy Patch Flimsy is together

Sunday afternoon I was able to sew on the binding to my little Mother Goose quilt. I finished it off late last night by hand sewing the binding down. I haven't made a label or a hanging sleeve for it yet but I plan on it. I just wanted to be able to sit in front of the TV and watch my shows and have some hand work to do. I am very pleased with how it turned out. My friend, Judy, quilted it and she did a great job.





This afternoon, I went to my LQS and bought the border fabric for my Jelly Roll quilt. They only had one bolt left of this fabric. I was lucky that it was in one of the colors that I wanted. I had decided on the green, red or purple and the red was the only color they had. So, I now have some red fabric to put a border on. I'll put the border on this tomorrow night after tatting or Wednesday night.

Sunday afternoon, I also put the sashing strips on the Crazy Patch quilt. I ran out of time and didn't put the final red border on it.
When I got home today, I put the red borders on and it is now ready for some light quilting. Here's a picture of this one...



Now, it is TV time for awhile. Til next time...

The Kind Hearted Pledge

Sheila over at My Empty Nest is Full of Cat Hair sent me to a new-to-me blog. I have never had any problems or misunderstandings on my blog but I have heard of others that have. I think it is important to be nice and friendly and treat others as you want to be treated. I try to encourage others on their journeys. I can be taken wrong as I tend to be sarcastic sometimes but I would never intentionally hurt anyone. Therefore, when I read Sheila's blog post today it intrigued me and I headed over to Jo Annie's blog. I have taken the Kind Hearted Pledge and hope you will look it over and consider doing the same. Click on the box and it will take you there....

Click here

GO Giveaway!!!

Judy over at SEW FUN QUILTS is having an Accuquilt GO Giveaway! I just entered and I really want to win. I have seen so many blogs showing the Go Cutter and I'm really excited to try one. Good luck!

Unhealthy week-pincushions-Jelly Roll Block/Quilt- Finished Scrap quilt and a sick sewing machine

This week has been horrible. I started getting sick Tuesday and came home from work early. I have been off all week with this and haven't felt like doing anything but laying around. I guess it was a virus. Wednesday, my husband came home with it and Thursday my son came home sick. It has not been any fun to be at our house this week. My son and husband went back to work today, not completely 100% but able to deal... I finally felt good enough to do a little house cleaning and sewing. So, this week has been very unproductive.

I have sprayed my house down with Lysol and washed all the sheets, towels and cleaned all the bathrooms to prevent us getting sick again. After that, I was able to finally get a little bit of sewing done.

I didn't feel good enough to work on anything until last night. I started hand stitching this little pincushion. I finished it and stuffed it this morning...I had done this one before but it didn't turn out right so, I redid it. Here's the correct one. Isn't it funny how you can have the same pieces and if you sew it together wrong, it makes two different things? Well, that just about says quilting all over it, doesn't it?
I'm still going to do this one again. I really didn't want the green on top. I wanted the color that's on the bottom to be the fabric on top. Now that I know how to do the pattern, it will be easier next time. This is really what it is supposed to look like.



This is what I ended up with the first time...



Quite a difference, huh?



I should have told you earlier where I found the pattern for the pincushion. So, shame on me for not telling you. It was from a fellow blogger named Mae Britt from Abyquilt and here's a link to the pincushion. It was alot of fun to make.

I sewed the last row onto an organized scrap quilt and I'm calling this one done. I have more scraps and might make something else but this one's big enough. This fabric was leftover from three quilts I made a few years back. The quilt was called Starry Night and it was a Marti Michell quilt. I had to make three of the same quilt because one was for the girl that started the shop sample and had an accident. I made one for myself and I gave another away. I was really tired of this quilt by the time I finished working on these and I just put all the scraps away. I had some fairly big scrap pieces but not enough to do anything fancy. I saw a Moda University pattern and decided to do it. It was called La Jardin (I think-I can't lay my hands on the pattern right this minute). It really wasn't even necessary to have a pattern for this one. Anyway, I think this will look just fine quilted and bound in the lighter blue fabric. I have just enough left for binding. It's not anything fancy but I like the fabrics and always did.






After that was done, I finished up block 12 of the Jelly Roll quilt along...(I know mine is a little different than the pattern but this is how I wanted it)



and I sewed it into the flimsy...I don't have any border fabric. I'm still looking in my stash to see if I can use anything. If not, I'll check with the LQS and see if they have any fabrics from this line left. If not, I might just have to order something online to finish this one off...I really like this one and want to stay in the same family if I can. I'll show you again when the border's on.




While I was sewing this little quilt, my lovely little sewing machine and I were fighting. Ms. Bernina was being stubborn and kept stopping while I tried to sew. She kept freezing up. I kept pushing her along...turning her off and on to get her going again, and we finished up. (I guess she caught a virus from me too.) I was getting so much done today too...Ms. Bernina and I made a trip into town to the Bernina shop and my favorite repair man was waiting for me. I had called ahead to make sure he was there and he met me at the door and carried the sick little lady in for me. He took her in and checked her out while I sat in on a free demo. I looked around, purchased some fabric for the sashings and backing for the Crazy Patch Christmas blocks I showed a few days/weeks ago. I'll finish them up next. Anyway, he was able to fix Ms. Bernina up with cleaning, oiling and some sort of new sensor and I was able to bring her home with me. I don't know if I'll have time to sew on her anymore today but I'm going to try later. Have a good weekend and happy sewing...